This is a first clearing up in the possible union of the left: the leadership of the Socialist Party announced Friday morning that it subscribed to the proposals of La France insoumise for a union before the legislative elections. But other ongoing discussions have stalled, notably with Europe Écologie-Les Verts (EELV) and the Communist Party. The climax of this rupture came in recent days, when the Greens and the Communists successively held a press conference.
The two parties have made public the state of their negotiations with La France insoumise. Their objective was to put pressure on Jean-Luc Mélenchon and finally, to obtain a satisfactory agreement.
Many disagreements on Europe and pensions
Whether vis-à-vis the common program or the distribution of seats, discussions are bogged down between EELV, the PCF and LFI. The Greens and the Communists are forced to put pressure on the Insoumis, like Fabien Roussel who is getting impatient. “We still have this ambition to win at least 289 leftist deputies and we say that it should accelerate a little more”, advances the former communist presidential candidate.
The crux of the problem, “it is the radicalism of La France insoumise on the program”, tackles an ecologist. Indeed, there are many disagreements, such as on the European Union or pensions. However, on several subjects, a compromise was found, nuclear power and the temporary price freeze in particular, but still too insufficient.
Insoumis “too greedy” in number of constituencies?
The real blockage obviously concerns the constituencies. “The Insoumis are too greedy”, asserts one of the negotiators. Concretely, of the 160 winnable territories, the Greens are asking for 32, the Communists around twenty and the Socialists around thirty, 80 in total therefore. But for the moment, “the Insoumis only let go of 50”, according to this same negotiator. The Communist Party asks in particular to distribute the 289 constituencies directly, to obtain the majority and not out of 160 only.
Finally, although the idea of a multilateral meeting between the four formations is proposed by the ecologist Julien Bayou and Fabien Roussel, the request remains unanswered on the side of the Insoumis and the socialists.